Nita A. Farahany
Associate Professor of Law Associate Professor of Philosophy
Voice: (615) 322-6091
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: nita.farahany@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Room 292A
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)
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Media Links
Area(s) of Expertise
Neuroethics, law and behavioral sciences (behavioral genetics, neuroscience), criminal law, tort law, law and philosophy
Research Interest(s)
Law and behavioral sciences, criminal law, civil law, bioethics, neuroethics, jurisprudence, philosophy of science
Education
J.D., M.A. & Ph.D. (Philosophy) Duke University
A.L.M. (Biology) Harvard University
B.A. Dartmouth College
Biography
Nita Farahany focuses on the legal, philosophical and social issues arising from developments in the biosciences, particularly related to behavioral genetics and neuroscience. Her published work has appeared in legal, philosophical and scientific publications as well as the mainstream media. She is the editor of The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law (Oxford University Press), which includes essays from experts on the use of behavioral genetics and neuroscience in the criminal justice system. She is currently examining how these emerging scientific developments inform agency and responsibility theory, and challenge existing doctrines in constitutional law. Professor Farahany presents her work widely and to varied audiences, including past presentations to the Second Circuit Judicial Conference, the National Judicial College, the Stanford Center for the Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. In 2010, Professor Farahany was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is serving as the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School in fall 2011. Before joining Vanderbilt, Professor Farahany clerked for Judge Judith W. Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in genetics and cellular biology, and from Harvard University with a master's degree in biology, where her thesis, Prescribing Culpability, critiqued the use of scientific criteria to define normative legal concepts. She earned her J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy of biology and jurisprudence at Duke University, where her doctoral dissertation, Rediscovering Criminal Responsibility through Behavioral Genetics, established the scientific and philosophical limitations to informing individual responsibility with behavioral genetics.
Media Mentions
C-SPAN coverage of the Bioethics Commission:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/227804
"The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours," op/ed piece published in the Washington Post on April 13, 2008: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103296.html
Representative Publications
Books
The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law, Oxford University Press (2009) (editor of collected volume)
Articles
"Searching Secrets," 160 University of Pennsylvania Law Review (forthcoming 2012)
"Incriminating Thoughts," 64 Stanford Law Review (forthcoming 2012)
"Memories of the Guilty Mind," Law and Contemporary Problems (forthcoming 2011)
"Cruel and Unequal Punishment," 86 Washington University Law Review 859 (2009)
“Law and Behavioral Morality,” in Evolution and Morality: NOMOS LIII, NYU Press (forthcoming) (Sanford Levinson, ed.)
“The Interface Between Freedom and Agency,” Stanford Technology Law Review (forthcoming 2009)
"Bad Nature, Bad Nurture, and Testimony in Murder Trials," 52 Journal of Forensic Science 1362 (2007) (with William Bernet, Cindy L. Vnencak-Jones and Stephen A. Montgomery)
"Behavioural Genetics in Criminal Cases: Past, Present and Future," 1 Genomics, Science & Policy Journal 2 (2006) (with William Bernet)
"Foreword," 69 Law & Contemporary Problems 1 (2006)
"Genetics and Responsibility: To Know the Criminal from the Crime," 69 Law & Contemporary Problems 115 (2006) (with James E. Coleman Jr.)
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